Amateur baseball showcases have been going on for as long as the game itself. In my lifetime though, the format and drills of a showcase (and what they measure) haven’t changed all that much. The purpose of introducing “The Roll Out of Bed Test” is an attempt to add an exercise to the showcase format that would be beneficial at getting a feel for a hitter’s pure bat-to-ball ability (or lack thereof). A good friend of mine thought of the basic premise for this test several years ago and with the increased emphasis on hitter contact ability in the game today, I felt it was a good time to draw up a proper outline for this idea.
Objective:
To get a quick, but in-depth look at hitters’ raw ability to put bat to ball and also their ability to quickly adjust to one wrinkle mixed in. This test isn’t meant to replace any traditional aspects of a showcase scenario, but rather measure a trait that I don’t think is effectively measured in these environments already.
As hitters with advanced bat-to-ball ability continue to grow in demand, this type of quick and simple drill can be used as a way to identify outliers (good and bad) as it pertains to this specific trait. Quality of contact is hardly even a consideration, from a scouting standpoint, I want to see the degree of ease that putting bat to ball comes for a hitter with no warm up routine and a little out of their usual element in a showcase environment.
Methodology:
Every hitter at the event will be sent directly from check-in to home plate, with only enough time to briefly stretch whatever they feel necessary, but practice swings are 100% prohibited in order for this test to run as intended.
All hitters will be given 10 total pitches off a pitching machine, nine of which will be fastballs at either 90 mph or 95 mph middle-middle, and the other will be a very average CB at 80 mph. The participating hitters won’t be given many further instructions nor will they know what the test is attempting to measure.
Below is an example of how a round of “The Roll Out of Bed Test” would go:
Pitch 1 | 95 mph (FB) |
Pitch 2 | 95 mph (FB) |
Pitch 3 | 90 mph (FB) |
Pitch 4 | 90 mph (FB) |
Pitch 5 | 80 mph (CB) |
Pitch 6 | 95 mph (FB) |
Pitch 7 | 95 mph (FB) |
Pitch 8 | 90 mph (FB) |
Pitch 9 | 95 mph (FB) |
Pitch 10 | 90 mph (FB) |
Conclusion:
While implementing “The Roll Out of Bed Test” may not be the most scientifically groundbreaking idea that has been pitched, given the ease of it and the skill it’s shedding more light on, I feel it’s more than a worthwhile thing to throw in an amateur baseball showcase.
If nothing else, the first few trial runs of this would be used to establish a rough draft baseline of performance in this drill. However, the eyeball test in real-time and the observations drawn from that I believe will be the most informative information to come from this.